


Sweeter Than a Dream (The Reality of You)

by KageOtogi



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: FrostIron - Freeform, Frostiron Reverse Bang 2017, Tony's mind palace, dreamception, pre-AOU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-05
Updated: 2017-04-05
Packaged: 2018-10-15 01:15:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10547544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KageOtogi/pseuds/KageOtogi
Summary: Tony is pretty sure—like, 88 percent sure—there's no way Loki is in his lab, in no small part because Loki is supposed to be dead. He's a little less sure when Loki shows up again.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Frostiron Reverse Bang 2017 project. My sincere thanks go to the very talented itsfrostironsfault, who drew the art that this story accompanies, served as my cheerleader, and was exceedingly patient as I waited until the very last minute to wrap this up. Thank you!

Given that he's on what is probably day three-point-six of no sleep, Tony is pretty sure—like, 88 percent sure—that he's either dreaming or hallucinating. Sure, it looks like he's still in his Stark Tower lab, and yes, he's still elbow-deep in the inner workings of the pet project that's managed to keep him from maintaining anything vaguely resembling a regular schedule for 50-plus hours now, but since Loki is there and (1) no alarms have gone off and (2) Loki is dead, Tony figures he pretty much has to be dreaming.

Tony carefully removes his arms from his bot casing (that this is a dream is no reason to risk snagging a wire and ruining all his hard work) and runs a grease-covered hand through his hair, considering his options.

Loki, for his part, tracks the movement with his eyes but otherwise is perfectly still. Which, as far as Tony is concerned, is just proof that this is a dream (or a hallucination; jury is still out); the Loki he remembers, the one who threw him out his penthouse window just a few years ago, is all nervous energy and, for lack of a better word, twitchy.

They stare at each other for a moment before Tony breaks the silence.

"How long have you been there?"

"Not long," Loki answers. "Are you not going to alert your teammates?"

"Should I?" It's a stupid question, but it comes out before he can rethink it. Of course he should. If there's even the slightest chance that this isn't a dream—and for all that he's pretty sure it is, there is that 12 percent of him that's nagging at him, telling him that he could be wrong—he should sound the alarm, wake up everyone in the tower, and have them barreling full-speed to his workshop to apprehend the suddenly not-dead supervillain who remains posthumously at the top of SHIELD's most wanted list.

Then again, if it is just his subconscious playing tricks on him, he'll feel pretty stupid when they get there and he has to explain that he was fantasizing or whatever about Loki, of all people.

Loki continues to track him with his eyes. "Most in your situation would."

"Yeah, well. Most people are… not me." He cringes as soon as the words leave his mouth. The lack of sleep must be getting to him; he likes to think he's typically a bit wittier than that. Even in his dreams. _Especially_ in his dreams. And, since that raises his 12-percent doubt level to somewhere in the 18-percent range, he asks point blank, "Am I dreaming?"

Loki's eyebrows go up and the corners of his mouth pull back in an expression that almost looks like the beginning of one of Loki's crazy 'I can kill you with my brain' smiles. "Do you often dream of me?"

He dreams about everybody, and he's definitely dreamed about Loki. Less so since his run-in with the Mandarin and since he's put a bit of distance between himself and his near-death space experience, but yeah, that's happened. Usually by this point in the dream, Loki is well on his way to defenestrating him, though. Tony ups his doubt level to 25 percent and edges his way around his worktable toward where he's keeping his rebuilt Iron Man gauntlets. Just in case.

Loki is still waiting for an answer; Tony changes the subject instead.

"Just for the record, if this is a sex dream, you're going to have to come again later." Pun intended. "Hate to disappoint, but I'm way too tired for that right now. Different time, different place, maybe, but..."

"No." Loki wrinkles his nose, a gesture Tony takes to mean the god is struggling not to vomit at the very idea of having to touch a human, much less sleep with one. "That is certainly not why I am here."

And that's the question, right there. Tony hones in on that before his sleep-deprived brain can veer off in some other, unexpected direction. "So why are you here?"

"I've my reasons."

"Is it to kill me?" Tony jams his hand into one of the Iron Man gauntlets while Loki is—hopefully—not paying attention. "Because if it is, you should probably do that before I decide to let the rest of your groupies know you're here."

Loki clucks his tongue disapprovingly, as though he's chastising a child. "If I were here to kill you, you would already be dead. I'm insulted that you think otherwise."

"Well, then, I've got to say, I'm drawing a blank."

"And here I was under the impression that you were one of the rare examples of intelligent life in this realm," Loki says, his voice dripping with feigned disappointment. "Surely you can do better than that."

Tony stares at him, his brain working overtime while he tries to parse out a reason—any reason, beyond killing him—why Loki might pop into his workspace in the middle of the night. Booty call is out, and Loki probably isn't here to steal something. If he were, why not wait until Tony passed out or left his lab? The dream alternative is still on the table, sure, but Tony is starting to be less and less certain that that's what's going on.

Still unable to think of a reason why Loki might be there, Tony grasps at straws. "Finally come to claim that drink?" he asks.

Loki blinks twice in quick succession, and for a second Tony thinks he's somehow managed to insult the god for real and Loki is going to kill him after all, but then Loki laughs. Like, really laughs. Not an evil supervillain cackle or a vaguely amused, condescending chuckle. Loki _laughs_ , with his eyes crinkling up at the corners and everything.

When he finishes, Loki shakes his head, still smiling faintly, and says, "I'd rather forgotten about that."

"So that's a no, then?"

Loki shrugs one shoulder, suddenly visibly relieved of a sort of tension Tony hadn't even realized was there, and inclines his head slightly. "Well, if you are offering…"

Okay, he definitely wasn't expecting that, but this is good. This is something he can handle, even when he's going off three-point-six-two days without sleep. Tony scrambles away from his worktable to his miniature wet bar—wouldn't do to keep a potentially murderous guest waiting, after all—and snags two (hopefully clean) glasses. They clank against the metal of his gauntlet as he sets them on the counter.

"Right, so, scotch is good?" he asks, already reaching for the bottle. "I'm having scotch."

"I'm sure that will suffice."

"Good. Great. Scotch it is." He pours a generous amount into both glasses, well aware that he's putting himself at a significant disadvantage if things take a turn for the worse. There's no way his alcohol tolerance, high as it is, can keep pace with Loki's, given that the guy grew up in Space Viking Paradise where even the children drink drinks that are apparently in the 70-proof range, and he's pretty sure he hasn't eaten anything since the half-sandwich Bruce left for him a day or so ago, so that's not going to help. Still, when he finishes pouring and considers the amount in the glasses, he tilts the bottle again and adds a little more to each glass. Just because. "Are we toasting to something, or what are we doing? Just drinking in awkward silence, what? I mean, I'm good with whatever, but I want to make sure we're on the same page, if you follow my drift."

Somewhere from the vicinity of the door, a voice pipes up, "Tony, who are you talking to?"

Tony looks up, eyes going first to where Loki was—and is no longer—standing and then to the door, where Bruce is lingering, holding a plate with another half-sandwich and some chips on it and apparently way more concerned about Tony's mental well-being than the fact that a dangerous supervillain was standing just a few arm-length's away not ten seconds earlier.

Okay.

Tony looks down at the glasses he's holding in either hand. They're real. They're definitely real. So that actually happened. What about the rest of it? Was Loki actually there, or did Tony sleep-pour his scotch? That would definitely be a new one, but he can't rule it out. It certainly seems more plausible than Loki showing up out of the blue and no one—not even JARVIS—taking any notice of it.

Bruce is still watching him, his brow furrowed and eyebrows knitting closer and closer together, so Tony offers up a smile and sets the glasses back down on the bar.

"I was celebrating," he lies. "I'm _this_ close to getting DUM-E working again."

His answer doesn't do much to unfurrow Bruce's brow, and Bruce nods toward the drinks. "You were celebrating with two glasses of scotch?"

"It's very good scotch," Tony says. "And one was maybe going to be for DUM-E. Probably not a great idea, in hindsight. He'd just get fried again, maybe worse than he did in the explosion."

Bruce shakes his head in what Tony recognizes as a 'what are we going to do with you?' kind of way and sets the plate with the half a sandwich on the first available surface. "You should consider getting some rest."

"No, I'm fine, I don't…" He trails off, glancing back to where he could swear Loki was standing not a minute before, and then quickly changes his mind. "You know what, yeah, you're right. This can wait until the morning."

Bruce looks skeptical. "Really?"

"Sure, why not? DUM-E has waited this long, he can wait three or four hours while I take a catnap." He tugs off his gauntlet, sets it down on the bar, and picks up one of the glasses. He uses it to gesture toward Bruce. "Want one? I'd hate to waste good scotch."

"No, thanks."

"Fine, suit yourself." He raises the glass once more. "Cheers," he says, and downs the contents. When he finishes, he sets the glass back down and nods toward the sandwich Bruce set down. "While I appreciate the thought, you know I don't need you guys to take care of me, right?"

Bruce shrugs one shoulder. "I know. We've all come to the conclusion that you're an adult and are probably able to take care of yourself. But we've also decided that it doesn't hurt if we leave offerings now and then when you go on these science binges."

"Right. Good thinking." Tony considers the second glass—Loki's glass, if Loki had in fact stopped in and it wasn't all just some kind of mirage—and ultimately decides to leave it there. It will keep for a few hours.

He claps Bruce on the shoulder as he passes him on his way the door. "Don't touch anything," he says, and he heads for the elevator. It takes him straight up to his penthouse and, when he arrives, he goes straight to the bedroom and falls onto his bed, fully clothed.

There's daylight coming from… somewhere, making it hard for Tony to tell exactly what time of day it is, and he figures it probably doesn't really matter. He covers his eyes with his forearm and lets out a breath. "Tint the glass, JARVIS, will you?"

"Tired, Stark?"

And, suddenly, he isn't. Tony shoots up in bed. "Loki."

For all that JARVIS has suddenly and somewhat inexplicably gone mute, the AI is still responsive; Tony's eyes have to adjust as the room quickly goes dim, but he can pick out Loki's shape as he prowls in front of the windows.

"JARVIS, lights at 30 percent."

The overheads creep on, and Tony eases himself further on the bed so that his back is propped against the wall. Loki doesn't take his eyes off him.

Tony watches Loki a moment more, trying to figure out—for the second time that day—if he's having a really vivid hallucination or if this is real, before he speaks. "If you came back for that drink, you're out of luck. I left it downstairs."

The corner of Loki's mouth quirks up into what might be the start of a smile. "Shame," he says, continuing his slow pacing in front of the now dark windows.

And that's when Tony sees it. Or, rather, doesn't see it.

Loki doesn't have a reflection.

The rest of the room is reflected in the glass behind him, but Loki isn't. Tony quickly runs through the possible reasons why that could be (vampire hallucination vampire dream trick of the light vampire vampire VAMPIRE illusion ghost vampire) before he settles on one.

"Do you sparkle in the sun, too?"

Loki blinks at him, clearly not understanding the reference, and Tony relishes the admittedly brief satisfaction he gets from that.

"You aren't real," he decides.

Loki seems nonplussed by that statement. He merely inclines his head. "What brought you to that conclusion?"

"Process of elimination. Scientific method. Take your pick."

"If this is your interpretation of the scientific method, I must say I find it quite lacking."

Okay, so he's definitely dreaming. There's no way Loki, who is essentially a space Viking, knows the scientific method, much less well enough to call Tony on his poor application of it. Regardless, because Tony is kind of a scientist, he feels the need to cite more evidence in support of his theory.

"Also, you're supposed to be dead," he says. "So, yeah. You're definitely not real."

"Ah, yes. That." Loki waves a dismissive hand. "A trivial thing, really."

"What, death?" Tony shakes his head. "Nice try. Not buying it." Still, because there is still that 25 percent chance that this isn't a sick, twisted product of his overly tired and probably greatly in need of professional help subconscious, he asks, "Just for the sake of argument, though, if you were real, why would you be haunting me?"

The corners of Loki's mouth turn up in what the god probably means to be a smile, but it looks to Tony like more of a grimace. Which, well, is a little hurtful. Even dream-Loki doesn't want to hang around.

"Perhaps this isn't real after all," Loki muses. "How would you be able to tell?"

"The part where I'm still alive is a pretty big clue." Tony rubs his palm against his chest, over where the arc reactor used to be. He seriously hopes the doctors got every last piece of shrapnel out of there; otherwise, at the rate his heart is pounding, he'll probably be dead any second now.

Loki shrugs, moving past the windows again. The hem of his duster sweeps around his ankles. He still doesn't have a reflection. "Coming here was perhaps an error," he says. The unexpected admission further cements it for Tony: There's no way this is real. The Loki he remembers—and the one Thor fondly reminisces about—doesn't admit when he's made a mistake. That puts him a tiny bit more at ease.

And, since this is definitely not real, Tony feels bold enough to pat the space on the bed next to him. "Well, c'mon, Bewitched. Sit yourself down and let's talk for a spell."

The corners of Loki's mouth turn up again; this time it actually does look a little like a smile. "Pun intended, Stark?"

"Fully. So how about it?"

"You don't truly wish to talk with me."

"Shows what you know. I have a lot to say, and it turns out people get pretty sick of the sound of my voice before too long. I could use a new victim."

There's a kind of gleam in Loki's eye, like he's enjoying the banter or whatever this is, and he spreads his hands. "Do your worst, Iron Man."

Challenge accepted. Tony nods to the spot on the bed he already indicated. "Want to take a seat?"

"With all due respect, you are a bit... ripe. I am inclined to keep my distance."

Tony bites back a laugh. "A guy goes three days doing heavy labor without a shower and suddenly he's a social pariah? Come on. I've been downwind of Thor after he's gone a round in the sparring ring with Steve. I know you've smelled worse."

"I think perhaps you are underestimating yourself."

Right. As soon as he wakes up—or stops hallucinating, whichever—he's taking a shower. His subconscious is clearly trying to tell him something.

Tony is prepping a wisecrack, something light-hearted to get them started, when Loki interjects.

"Do you dream of it? The void?"

Ah. He wasn't expecting that. Tony hesitates. He hasn't heard it called that before, but he knows what Loki is referring to: that vast blackness of space beyond the wormhole. He'd only gotten a glimpse at it and it hadn't exactly been empty and void-like at the time, but the feeling… He'd been certain he was going to die there. That that would be the last thing he ever saw. Sometimes he closes his eyes and still sees it, and it knocks the breath out of him. So yes, he knows what Loki means.

"Have you seen it, too?" he asks.

"Oh, yes. And much more of it than have you."

Tony swallows against the sudden lump in his throat. His heart is racing again, and he runs his sweaty palms against his jeans. He shouldn't have such a visceral reaction to this. Not to the mere mention of it, in what is probably a dream. It's ridiculous. He needs to move past it. He has to find a way forward. And he definitely shouldn't entertain that little pang of sympathy that stabs at him when Loki says he's seen the place.

In the meantime, he avoids meeting Loki's gaze. "No," he says. "Why would I dream about that?"

"No," Loki agrees, thoughtfully. "Of course. You've already admitted to dreaming about me. How could you possibly have time for anything else?"

"Not _just_ you. Don't go around thinking you're special."

Loki presses a hand to his chest, feigning insult. "Stark, you wound me."

"Yeah, I bet." He eases further up on his bed so that he can rest his back against the wall. "What do you care what I dream about, anyway?"

"Perhaps I am merely interested in learning your base desires, Stark. Your motivations."

"The stuff that makes me tick, huh? And here you said this wasn't a booty call."

Tony can practically feel how badly Loki wants to roll his eyes, but the god somehow manages to restrain himself. "Surely you think about _something_ other than sex."

"Who, me?" Tony grins. "Now come on. That's just crazy."

He's kidding, but Loki's expression instantly darkens until it very closely resembles that of the Loki Tony remembers from their first encounter in New York. Brooding. Angry. Pained. It's terrifying. Tony holds his breath.

Loki lowers his voice. "Be mindful of what you say," he warns.

Tony hesitates. Okay, so dream Loki doesn't like being called crazy. Now he knows. He raises his hands in mock surrender. "Alright, okay, you win. I do sometimes think about something other than my libido." His self-preservation instinct, for instance. "But if you think coming to me in a dream will help you crack the mystery that is me, you'd better think again."

All of Loki's razor-sharp edges immediately smooth out as Loki returns to the more polished, courteous demeanor he adopted when he first appeared in Tony's workspace, but Tony stays on his guard; now that he knows it's there, he can spot the threat of violence lurking behind Loki's clever eyes and casual gait. He'll watch his step going forward.

He speaks up before Loki can. "So, how's being dead working out for you? Good?"

"You keep obsessing over this," Loki chides. "My so-called death."

"I am not."

"This is the second time you've brought it up in the past five minutes."

"Well, sorry, guess I don't run into dead guys that often, much less coherent ones. It's a bit of a novelty for me."

"I should have guessed."

"Not that it matters," Tony continues, "seeing as how you're probably just a dream."

"And now we've come full circle. This really is getting quite dull."

Right, as though Tony is responsible for keeping the guy entertained. It's not as though he asked Loki to show up and crash in his head space. If he'd known he was going to have company, maybe he'd have prepared some talking points. Then again, maybe not. He's always had a habit of doing this kind of thing on the fly. It's worked out okay for him so far, all those near-death experiences aside.

Speaking of.

"Am I dead?" Tony asks, the question bursting out of him even before he realizes it has started to formulate in his brain.

Loki blinks at him, apparently caught off guard by the question. Ha. Take that. "I beg your pardon?"

"I mean, it's not that stupid a question, right? You're here and JARVIS isn't sounding the alarm. Oh, and you don't have a reflection. So maybe you're, I don't know, some harbinger of death come to escort me to the afterlife. I mean, I don't really believe in the afterlife, if I'm being honest here, but you're not telling me anything, and, well, what's to say I didn't choke on a ham sandwich, Mama Cass style, and that's why you're here?"

Loki stares at him for a solid thirty seconds, then laughs lowly and shakes his head. "No, Stark. You are not dead."

Tony's brain adds the unspoken 'yet.' Stupid traitor brain. "So how about you tell me why you're here, then? Why you're really here. If you are really here. Don't tell me you just missed my company."

"And if I did?"

"Our sole interactions before today have been you letting me arrest you, you throwing me out a window, and me watching Thor take you back to Asgard. In chains. So, yeah, I'm going to go with 'not likely' for 200, Alex."

The _Jeopardy_ reference is, not surprisingly, completely lost on Loki, who shrugs and prowls by the windows, turning his attention outside as though he's contemplating the view.

"Do you ever consider that things could have gone drastically different for you, Stark?" Loki asks. "A single decision, a single action done differently..."

"Why are you asking all the hard questions today?" Tony complains. "I'm not even remotely lucid enough for this." He rubs his palms together. "Anyway, who can say? I don't exactly think these things through. I'm just a lucky guy."

"You are not, however. Not really."

Tony frowns. "Are you going somewhere with this?"

Loki shrugs one shoulder. "Merely musing aloud."

"Yeah, that's not what this sounds like." Tony squints, considering Loki. "You aren't trying to, I don't know, relate to me, are you? Because, look, even if we're a little bit similar—and we're not, trust me—it isn't like I'm going to feel sorry for you or anything. Having an awful childhood isn't exactly a good excuse for, you know, mass murder."

"So I'm told."

"For the record, you shouldn't have to be told that more than once."

Tony expects Loki to threaten him or glare at him or at least roll his eyes, so he's more than a little surprised when Loki just laughs softly.

"You intrigue me, Stark."

Tony furrows his brow. "I what?"

"You intrigue me." Loki spreads his hands. "You asked why I was here. Now I've answered you."

"Right. Well, okay, as disconcerting as you probably don't intend that to be, I can get behind that. I'm pretty intriguing. I'm more intriguing when I've gotten some sleep in me, though. Just so you know."

"That's up for debate, I think."

"Yep, okay. Is that it, then? I'm interesting? That's the only reason you're here?"

Loki tilts his head just slightly to one side. "For now."

"Still disconcerting."

The corners of Loki's mouth go up just a little, as though he's trying not to smile, and Loki shakes his head. "I'll take you at your word that you are more worth my while after you've had some sleep," he decides. "Rest easy, Stark."

"Right, that sounds—" Tony cuts himself off as Loki disappears into thin air. "Great. Yep. It'll be a real cinch to rest easy when I've clearly just had some kind of stroke." He presses the heels of his hand against his eyes. "JARVIS? You there, buddy?"

_'Is everything quite all right, sir?'_

He's a little relieved that JARVIS has broken what was apparently a vow of silence, and more than a little concerned that JARVIS isn't, well, on the phone with the Asgardian Police Department or whatever the equivalent might be.

"You saw all that, didn't you?"

_'I assume by "all that" you are referring to your talking to yourself, sir? Rest assured. I've long-since stopped seeing that as an anomaly.'_

"Reassuring. Thank you." He pushes his hair back from his face. "So you didn't see Loki?"

_'No, sir.'_

Great. So either he's hallucinating or he's going crazy. He's not sure he likes his odds, but given that he's now officially on day three-point-whatever of no sleep... Well, maybe his brain will fix itself if it gets a little shut-eye.

Tony gets settled back on the bed, casting a quick, appraising look back toward the windows to make sure he doesn't suddenly have company again, and then shuts his eyes. "Don't bother waking me, JARVIS. I apparently need my beauty rest."

 _'I'm sure_ GQ _will come calling any day now, sir,'_ JARVIS quips, and Tony smiles.

"And you know how I hate to disappoint them." He stretches out. "You know what to do, J."

JARVIS responds by dimming the lights, and Tony—for all that he's sure he'll lay awake for hours trying to puzzle out this whole Loki hallucination thing—falls asleep just moments later.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written for the Frostiron Reverse Bang 2017 project. My sincere thanks go to the very talented itsfrostironsfault, who drew the art that this story accompanies, served as my cheerleader, and was exceedingly patient as I waited until the very last minute to wrap this up. Thank you!

Tony wouldn't go so far as to say he's forgotten his very probably imaginary run-in with Loki, but considering he's gone a few weeks without another sighting and has been getting semi-regular sleep, much to the team's surprise and Pepper's apparent delight, he's willing to chalk it up to his subconscious playing a really weird prank on him.

At least, he is until he walks into his workspace to find Loki examining a newly repaired and very concerned-sounding DUM-E.

Tony clears his throat. "Is this going to be a thing? Should I be worried about this?"

DUM-E whirrs. Loki straightens, clasps his hands behind his back, and smiles. It's just as disconcerting as ever. "I assume you had a restful night's sleep, Stark?"

"I... What?"

"You assured me you would be more intriguing after you slept. Are you?"

Tony tries not to look as confused as he feels. Loki realizes more than a night has passed, right? Tony decides, just in case, that he's better off not pointing that out. "Yes. Obviously. Super intriguing. That's me."

"Marvelous." Loki glances back at DUM-E as the bot makes a distressing, high-pitched noise, then arches an eyebrow in Tony's general direction. "This is quite an interesting device."

"That's DUM-E." He tries to stop himself there, before he can delve into detail of how DUM-E works and how Tony put him together and remade him. He's relatively sure that Loki, who may or may not be real and is almost definitely a little unhinged, for all he's acting fairly normal just now, isn't interested in that.

He tries. He tries very hard.

He fails.

"I made him when I was a kid. Kind of a big deal. I was lauded as something of a supergenius, following in my father's footsteps, that sort of thing. He was a bit more beat up before, but I took advantage of his circuitry getting fried during the explosion back in Malibu—also kind of a big deal, but you probably didn't hear anything about it, even though I'm pretty sure it happened before you died—to make a few updates, reinforce the casing, that sort of thing. So this is DUM-E two-point-oh, I guess. Not as much of a scientific marvel as he was thirty-some years ago, but still good."

Loki raises a hand to stop him then, before he can ramble on, and Tony takes the gesture as the invitation it is and shuts his mouth. He fully expects, at best, Loki to make a snide, insulting remark and change the subject, so he's not quite prepared when Loki turns back toward DUM-E, lowers himself to DUM-E's level, and holds out his hand as though he's greeting a strange dog.

"Hello, DUM-E," Loki says. "I am Loki. It is a pleasure."

Tony's jaw drops. "Did you just..."

Loki glances his way, eyebrows arched. "Did I just what?" he asked.

"Nothing." He pretends to find something fascinating on his worktable and fiddles with that until Loki finally turns his attention back to DUM-E.

Tony gets it. DUM-E is a robot, and it isn't as though he designed DUM-E to be the way he is—if he had, there would be a lot fewer robot-caused mistakes in the lab—and so Tony doesn't expect anyone to treat DUM-E as though he's a living, thinking being with thoughts and a personality of his own. He does, sure, but he recognizes that he's a little strange in that regard, and he definitely doesn't expect Pepper or Rhodey or Bruce or _anybody_ , really, to treat DUM-E or any of the other bots as anything more than machines.

And then there's Loki, who goes and <>introduces himself as though it's not only a perfectly normal thing to do, but like it's _expected_.

Tony isn't really sure how to take it.

Neither is DUM-E, apparently; his grasping arm swivels as though he's looking back and forth between Tony and Loki, searching for some indication of what to do. He eventually settles on wheeling a few inches forward and bumping his grasper against Loki's hand.

Seemingly satisfied, Loki straightens and pats the top of DUM-E's casing. "Charming."

Tony quickly picks up the thing he was fiddling with—a pair of pliers, as it turns out—as Loki turns his way. "So," he says, before Loki has the chance to speak, "you came to see if I live up to my reputation?"

"To your boasting," Loki corrects. "But yes."

"Is that the only reason?"

Loki clucks his tongue as though he's scolding a child. "Must I have another purpose? I could take insult at your apparent determination that I've some ulterior motive."

"Don't you?"

"Regardless of whether I do—"

"You totally do."

"—that hardly means you should leap to such assumptions."

"Right, sure." Tony puts the pliers back down on the table. "Just saying that if you went and asked for whatever you're going to ask for instead of dancing around it, you might get what you want a little faster. That's all."

"Oh, I doubt that."

"So you _do_ want something."

Loki chuckles. "You're quite amusing when you think you've bested me. No, Stark. My contradicting your statement is not an indication of my _wanting_ something from you."

Really, Tony figures, he should just be glad Loki hasn't thrown him out the window. And yes, the god probably has some kind of an agenda, but as long as Tony stays on his guard and doesn't give away state secrets or something, this should be okay. No problem. He can pretend Loki is here to enjoy his company if Loki can.

Tony meanders to the bar. "So, what's the latest in the afterlife? Heard any good gossip from Nikola Tesla, or, I don't know, Galileo Galilei lately?"

Loki chuckles. "I regret that I must disappoint you."

"Too bad. Let me know if you hear of them having any great ideas they didn't get around to following through on while they were alive, would you? I haven't had my name in the paper for a solid week, and I'm starting to worry the world is forgetting about me." He takes down two glasses and pours some scotch into each. "Drink? We got interrupted the last time."

"I will not refuse one, no."

"Didn't think so." He holds out one of the glasses to Loki, who takes it. Their fingers brush for a split second; Tony expects Loki's fingers to be cold, like he expects a dead person's would be, but they aren't. They're warm. Pleasantly so.

He sips his scotch so that he doesn't think more about that. Loki sips his, too, and apparently doesn't find it altogether too distasteful, seeing as how he doesn't throw the glass back in Tony's face or anything.

Instead, Loki surveys the workspace. "I assume you were coming here to work on some little project or another?" he queries.

He'd actually come down to make sure DUM-E was still in working order, but yeah, probably he would have wound up tinkering on something for a few hours while he was there, so Loki isn't too far off. Tony shrugs. "Maybe."

"Do not let me stop you. I assume you are multitalented enough to work and carry on a conversation simultaneously."

"Yeah. I can even walk and chew bubblegum at the same time, too, if I think about it real hard."

Loki smiles, just a little, and swirls the scotch in his glass. "You've a good memory," he says.

"Why's that?"

"When you initially offered me that drink, however long ago that was now, it was an attempt to stall me. Don't think I don't know that. Such a thing is hardly worth remembering, especially in light of what followed, and I admit that I'd forgotten the instance until the other day, when you brought it up. And yet you recalled it. How is that? Have you thought a great deal about our encounter, Stark?"

Tony shakes his head. "Just a good memory," he says. In reality, he spent a good chunk of time after the battle in New York watching and rewatching security footage to see if there was something he missed. Something he could have seen earlier, before Loki opened the portal and ushered the Chitauri through, to keep things from getting worse. He has their two-minute conversation in the penthouse more or less memorized.

He also sometimes replays Loki's encounter with the Hulk on repeat, just to cheer himself up when he's having a bad day, but Loki definitely doesn't need to know about that.

Tony takes another gulp of his scotch and gestures toward his worktable. "So, you know, I know you said not to let you being here stop me from working, but I think it's probably going to stop me from working."

"Nonsense. Merely pretend that I am not here."

"While you, what, twiddle your thumbs and watch me?"

"I assure you, you will hardly even know I'm here."

Tony snorts. "No offense, but I find that hard to believe."

Loki shrugs. "Merely give it a try," he suggests.

Tony eyes him skeptically but, since he's not sure what else to do short of make more idle small talk that may or may not result in Loki snapping and breaking him in half, he does just that. He turns his back on Loki and gets to work.

He doesn't forget Loki is there, exactly; the god occasionally goes to the bar and pours himself more scotch (and tops up Tony's glass, which is surprisingly courteous of him) or interrupts to ask what Tony is doing, but he's not intrusive. His questions are intelligent. Insightful. Coherent. And sure, Tony knows from what little Thor has said about it that Loki is supposed to be super smart, especially compared with the average Asgardian, but Tony wasn't expecting _this_. And, as someone who is used to being the smartest guy in the room, he finds that he's more than a little pleased to talk to someone who gets it. Which is kind of concerning.

Okay, very concerning.

Tony eventually clears his throat. "Okay, so, aside from the distinct possibility that I'm hallucinating your being here, is there a reason JARVIS has gone mute both times you've showed up?"

"All three times," Loki corrects. He's taken a seat somewhere out of the way where he can watch Tony work, out of Tony's line of sight. "It's simple, really. This time, I merely explained, quite politely, that I wouldn't so much as dream of dismantling his programming beyond repair, provided he did me the courtesy of remaining silent while I was inclined to visit."

Tony shivers. "Right. That's not super villain-y at all."

Loki laughs softly. "He was quite amenable," he says, as though that makes it better.

"What about the last two times?"

"You needn't worry over it," he says, and then he changes the subject. "I noticed during my last venture here that you have made some changes to your tower since my initial visit."

"Well, seeing as how you brought the wrecking crew with you that first time, I figured I could stand to make a few additional upgrades. Plus, I wanted to give some of the team a place to crash if they wanted it, so I had to make more living spaces, reinforce a few of the floors... You know how it is." He tightens a bolt and turns a bit so that he has Loki in his peripheral vision. "I gave Bruce the room with the you-shaped hole in it."

Loki wrinkles his nose at that, but since he doesn't throw a knife at him or try to throw him out a window, Tony takes that as a win. "Charming."

"Yeah, he thought so, too."

"I noticed you have not kept my other accoutrements."

Tony frowns. "Your what?"

Loki shrugs. "Doctor Selvig's device, any of the abandoned Chitauri weaponry, my scepter..." He sips his scotch, waiting.

Aha. Tony sets down his tools and turns fully to face Loki. "That's why you're here, isn't it? I get it. You want your stuff back. But, see, we have this saying here on Earth. Finders keepers, that sort of thing. SHIELD confiscated all of that. Who knows where they're keeping it now."

"Yes," Loki muses. "Who knows? What with all of the upheaval after the Hydra incident..."

"How do you know about that?"

"I pay attention." He sets his now-empty scotch glass aside. "The device and weaponry are really no matter. Trinkets. It is something of a shame that the scepter has so very likely been misplaced, however. It is a thing of great power."

"It's not that powerful. It didn't work on me."

Tony hopes he's imagining the way Loki's gaze quickly drops to where the arc reactor used to be. "No," Loki agrees, "it did not."

Tony rubs at his chest with his hand and turns away again, back to his machine. He doesn't pick up his tools. "What do you want the scepter back for, anyway? Or, wait, does it have some kind of special magic that will bring you back from the dead? Because that'd be creepy. Right up your alley, I think."

"I doubt that would be much of a life," Loki says. "And I never said I wanted it back."

"Then why even bring it up?"

"No reason, really. Merely musing aloud that it is something of a tragedy that you do not know where such a rare and powerful item might have wound up, or who might have control of it now."

Oh. OH. How did he not think of that before? Tony tugs his fingers through his hair, trying to distract his racing thoughts, and looks back Loki's way. "JARVIS is still functional even if he's not talking, right?"

Loki shrugs. "Of course."

"Good. JARVIS, buddy, run a search of SHIELD's inventory database. Anything they pulled after the battle in New York." He finishes off what's left of his scotch. "Hate to drink and run, Igor, but turns out I have some Avengers-y stuff to..." He trails off as he looks back and sees that Loki has already disappeared, then shakes his head. "Right, well, I guess you can see yourself out. JARVIS, how's that search coming?"

_'Agonizingly slow, sir. It would seem what is left of the SHIELD database has not been updated in quite some time.'_

"First of all, welcome back. Second, see what you can find. Let me know. Third, don't make deals with the figurative devil. I shouldn't even have to tell you that."

_'I suppose claiming I did so out of a sense of self-preservation would be remiss, given your own track record.'_

"Glad you see it my way." He heads for the elevator. "Call the team. I think we've got to have ourselves a little chat."

All told, Tony is pretty sure he ages about a thousand years before the rest of the team finally assembles in his penthouse—in person, in Bruce's and Steve's case, and on the video screen for everybody else—and he's resorted to pacing to keep himself from exploding.

Steve tracks his path around the penthouse, brow furrowed. "Something you wanted to talk about, Tony?"

There's no point in making small talk, so Tony just dives right in. "Who took SHIELD's stuff in the divorce? Anyone know? Was it Hydra?"

The silence lasts just long enough to be uncomfortable, and then Clint coughs. "Can we not call it a divorce? That's just... Yeah."

"It is kind of a flawed metaphor," Bruce agrees.

"Not my point. Where did all their toys go?"

Steve glances toward the video monitor, as though he's trying to convey some unspoken message to someone. Natasha, if Tony has to guess. "Have you asked Maria Hill?" he asks. "She works for you now, doesn't she?"

"I'm asking you guys. Come on. Don't tell me we seriously dropped the ball on this. You remember what kind of stuff SHIELD was keeping in storage, don't you?"

"Probably better than you do," Natasha says. Tony doesn't take offense, seeing as how she's almost definitely right about that. "Did you have anything in particular in mind?"

"Yeah." He pauses for a beat, for dramatic effect. "Loki's staff."

Clint hisses a breath out through his teeth. Everyone else is silent.

Tony surges on. "JARVIS can't find any record of it after SHIELD picked it up post–New York. It probably wound up in some science lab somewhere, but since no one seems to know exactly where it is _now_ , I figure we should probably get around to figuring that out before someone else tries to use mind control to bend the world to his will."

"Impossible," Thor booms, altogether too close to the webcam he probably commandeered from poor Doctor Foster. "Anyone wanting to wield that scepter would have to be of immeasurable mental and physical strength."

Tony decides not to point out that Loki was very clearly out of his mind while he was using the thing, so his mental strength argument is debatable. "Right, about that. You've noticed you're part of a team of literal super heroes, right? Mental and physical strength is kind of what we do."

Bruce fidgets. "I'd be more concerned about whoever wants to take it apart and figure out what makes it so powerful," he admits. "It's a power source like we've never seen before. We know how Loki used it, but we've no idea what else it could do, and in the wrong hands..."

"Whether they're Hydra's or SHIELD's," Steve agrees. "You're right. We should know where it is, and we should be able to keep tabs on it. Where do we start?"

"Finally, someone is talking sense." Tony rubs his hands together, trying to expend some of his nervous energy. "I had JARVIS take a reading of it back when we were trying to track down the Tesseract, for all the good that did us. If we try to pinpoint some trace of it on a satellite feed or something, we might be able to get a general idea of where it is."

Bruce furrows his brow, moving forward on the seat of his chair so that he's practically perched on the edge. "It didn't have a far-reaching signature," he points out. "Doing that could take months. Years. It might not work at all."

"So we do some detective work in the meantime," Clint supplies. "I know some people. I'll see what they can find out."

Natasha nods, and Tony takes that to mean that she also knows some people—probably super dangerous, untrustworthy people—that she can tap for help.

"It might be easier to start rooting out the Hydra strongholds," Steve says. "Chances are they walked away with things just as or more dangerous than Loki's staff. We should find out what they've got."

Tony pretends to swoon. "Cap, warn me when you're going to talk all strategic and smart-like, won't you? I have a weak heart." He glances toward Thor's screen. "How about you, buddy? Are you in?"

Thor is quiet for a solid thirty seconds before he says, "I would venture to ask how my brother's weapon came to mind, Tony. It has been some time since the encounter in the new city of York."

Someone out of sight behind Thor—Tony would guess Jane's assistant—shouts, "Just call it New York like everybody else," which elicits a muffled laugh on Clint's part.

Tony hesitates. He's not sure whether he's imagining his occasional Loki visits or if they're real, at this point, and even if they're real, he's not sure he wants to dredge up that possibility. Loki isn't causing any trouble—yet—and Thor is still mourning him. If Tony is imagining it all, the last thing he wants to do is get Thor's hopes up.

"Just watching some old footage," he says instead. "You know how it goes."

Thor nods. "I see."

"So," Tony says, quickly, before anyone else can follow Thor's lead and start asking questions. "Do we have a plan? Steve? Plan?"

Steve nods. "We have a plan."


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written for the Frostiron Reverse Bang 2017 project. My sincere thanks go to the very talented itsfrostironsfault, who drew the art that this story accompanies, served as my cheerleader, and was exceedingly patient as I waited until the very last minute to wrap this up. Thank you!

It turns out that finding Hydra hideouts is harder than it sounds. Natasha goes underground to put her contacts to work; Thor goes off-planet to do the same. Bruce tries to pinpoint and amplify any trace of the scepter's energy signature. Clint comes back from wherever he's been to help with the search, and since he has an eye for spotting things that are even the slightest bit out of the ordinary, he, Steve, and Tony wind up spending more than their fair share of long nights together scouring aerial surveillance and satellite feeds.

Long, sleepless nights.

Probably because of the super soldier serum, Steve barely needs to sleep, and Clint's secret super power is apparently that he can stay up for practically forever as long as he ingests enough coffee. Tony, on the other hand... Well, looking at grainy photos isn't exactly what he considers his strong suit, much less any fun whatsoever, and that makes it hard for him to want to stay awake.

Tony tries to suppress his yawn. "Any luck?" he asks, trying not to sound as hopeful as he feels. The way he sees it, the sooner they find something, the sooner they can stop looking for those somethings.

"No," Clint answers. "Are we sure they didn't just go underground or something? And I mean that literally. Like mole people."

Steve shakes his head. "That isn't their style. They were infiltrating SHIELD for years without anyone realizing it. They'll be hiding in plain sight, so we have to keep our eyes open."

Tony is already kind of regretting bringing up the whole scepter thing to the team, the whole 'good of the planet' thing notwithstanding. "Well, we've only got to cover the entire planet," he says, flipping to a new picture and biting back another yawn. "How hard could it be?"

Steve sets down his StarkPad. "Maybe we should take a break," he suggests. "We've been at it for a while, and it might be a good idea to come back at this with fresh eyes."

"What, are you guys afraid you aren't going to be able to keep up with me?"

Steve and Clint exchange a glance that Tony pretends not to see, and Steve shakes his head. "I think we'll all do better with a break," he says again.

"That, and you look like you're about to fall over," Clint supplies.

"I'm not about to fall over," Tony protests. "I'm fine." He's just bored out of his mind, that's all. It's easy to go without sleep when it's something he's excited about—when he's getting his hands dirty and solving puzzles and doing things that are worth missing a few hours' sleep. This... This is none of those things.

"We've been at this for a while anyway," Steve points out. "We may as well take the night and start again tomorrow. Hydra has waited this long. It can wait a few more hours."

Clint laughs. "That sounds so weird, coming from you. Didn't you lead a group in World War II whose sole job was to, you know, go after Hydra pretty much nonstop?"

Steve shrugs. "Different times. Different circumstances."

"Different stakes," Tony points out. "We can't afford to take a break."

"We can't afford not to take a break," Steve corrects. "Three, four hours, Tony. That's all. Don't worry. None of this is going to go anywhere."

Tony isn't entirely convinced, but Steve and Clint are already setting their respective equipment aside, and he has to admit that he'd rather be doing anything but this. He runs a hand through his hair. "Just three hours?" he asks.

"Four, tops," Steve assures him. "JARVIS will let us all know, right?"

_'Of course.'_

Steve nods and clamps a hand on Tony's shoulder, briefly, as he passes him. "Get some rest, Tony. We'll get back to work in a few."

He's still not sure if he believes him, but Tony nods and, when Clint mock-salutes him on his way out the door, he gives him a one-fingered salute of his own, then takes a deep breath and turns slowly in a circle, taking in the state of his workspace. It's a mess. More so than usual. Clint has photos and scraps of paper scattered just about everywhere. Steve has been a bit tidier, but there's several pieces of notepaper on the table by his StarkPad, and Tony is pretty sure he saw Steve absentmindedly writing on the tabletop earlier.

Tony sighs. He'll leave the clutter alone for now—he's probably the last person who should complain about that kind of thing, but there's a difference between having his stuff in his space and having other people's stuff in his space, really—but maybe he can find something else to do. Something to keep his brain busy and maybe give him something to think about while Steve and Clint keep searching for Hydra bases.

Worth a shot, anyway.

"JARVIS?"

Silence.

Tony hesitates. "...Loki?"

Loki laughs from some dark shadow; Tony turns toward it. "Very good, Stark."

"Well, you know me, I'm a regular Sherlock Holmes." And honestly, he's not even surprised to see Loki. Tony is tired and not quite feeling like himself; when else would Loki stop by for a visit? "You're back awfully soon, Dasher. Did you miss me?"

"Do not flatter yourself." Loki glances around. "You are searching for the scepter. Why is that, I wonder?"

Tony frowns. "Don't start with that. You're the one who brought it up. You put the idea in my head. You know why I'm looking for it."

"I merely asked after it. You took it a step further. How interesting." Loki picks up Steve's abandoned StarkPad, turns it over in his hands as though he's trying to figure out what it is, and sets it back down on the worktable. "Really, I was just pointing out how very important it is to keep up with one's inventory."

"Has anyone ever told you you'd make a great librarian? If this whole undead supervillain thing ever falls through, maybe keep that in mind as a fallback plan."

Loki chuckles. "Perhaps."

Tony watches Loki for a few seconds, trying to exhaust the mental image of Loki dressed as a librarian before he has to actually deal with anything the god might say, then lets the question he's been mulling over for the past several days burst out of him. "Is us trying to find your magic stick thing really just us doing your dirty work for you? Because I hate to break it to you, but that's not original. I've seen that sort of thing on TV."

Loki wrinkles his nose. "If I wanted to find the scepter, I imagine I would have it by now. No, Stark. I do not want it, nor am I using you to find it for me."

"So why get us to track it down in the first place?"

"I did not 'get' you to do anything. You made that choice of your own volition."

"Sure, because you're manipulative as fuck. Whether you did it directly or not, that's not my point. Why bring it up at all if you don't want it?"

Loki sighs and continues as though he's trying to explain something to a small child. "The scepter is a dangerous thing, in its present form, and it is more powerful than you know. While I've no desire to have it back in my possession, the matter of who does possess it is something of my concern."

"Why?"

"It merely is."

Tony frowns. "Okay," he concedes. "So you want to make sure the right person has it, and you brought it up to me so that I'd go looking for it, which I'm going to take to mean that you think I ought to be the one hanging onto it. Why me?"

Loki shrugs. "You've the innate curiosity—a need to know all there is to know—that drives you to seek it out. You've the resources to do so. And you have proven yourself able to resist such remarkable temptations as the scepter might offer." He glances at him. "Really, Stark, you and I are not so different, except in that one respect. Perhaps you may succeed where I failed."

"Right, except I don't want to take over the world."

"Precisely." Loki's eyes flick across Tony's face, and his brow furrows. "When did you last sleep?"

"I don't know. It's been a while. But I'm fine. Have lots to do." He gestures around the workspace. "Staffs to find, worlds to save, that sort of thing. It's kind of a twenty-four-seven sort of deal these days."

"Worlds to save," Loki repeats, thoughtful, but his expression quickly turns serious. "You are afraid to sleep," he says. It is definitely not a question.

"I'm not _afraid_."

Loki dismisses his protest without so much of an acknowledgement. "Is it because you still dream of the void?"

"I do not..." Tony cuts himself off as he remembers just who he's talking to, and he can already tell that Loki knows he's lying. "Look, I've found that the best way to deal with this whole post-traumatic trauma-trauma shenanigan is to bottle it all up and drink until I'm too far gone to dream, except Pepper doesn't like it when I get blackout drunk and, well, that just puts a damper on my whole self-therapy plan."

"Mm." Loki tilts his head slightly to one side. "And if I said I could help with that?"

"Can you? Without killing my girlfriend?"

"Would you trust me enough to accept my help if I said I could?"

And that's the thing, isn't it? He definitely should not trust Loki. These past few relatively harmless visits aside, Loki is a very volatile, dangerous person. He could kill Tony in less than a second, if he wanted to, and it wouldn't even be a difficult thing for him. Hell, even ignoring everything that happened in Stuttgart or New York, Tony knows just from listening to Thor's stories that Loki is deadly with a knife, and he's calculating, besides. Sure, Tony is smart, but he tends to fly by the seat of his pants. Loki is smart, and he always thinks a few moves ahead. It's a lethal combination.

Forget the library sciences; Loki should try his hand at chess.

Then again, assuming this isn't some slow burn of a plan meant to take down the Avengers and who knows who else, it would be great to fall asleep—without the help of scotch—and not wake up in a cold sweat and that sick, oily feeling in the pit of his stomach. And Loki... Well, maybe he's turning over a new leaf now that he's dead. Thor did say he died a heroic death, whatever that means, and Loki has been pretty okay so far. And DUM-E likes him, as evidenced by the bot's persistent whirring as he lingers by Loki's feet, and DUM-E doesn't like just anybody.

Well, okay, he does, but that's not the point.

Tony's hesitation lasts a little too long for Loki, apparently, as the god shrugs and starts to turn away. "I can't say I'm surprised. In that case, I'll take my leave of you for the evening, and you may return to whatever this—"

"Wait."

Tony surprises himself with the outburst, and Loki, too, if the god's arched eyebrows are any indication. Loki slowly turns back fully toward him.

"Yes?"

"What... What would your help entail, exactly?"

Loki shrugs. "Nothing too tiresome. I would merely create for you a sort of default dreamscape. A peaceful scene, I assure you."

"What's the catch?"

"If it can even be called as such. Until you request it of me, you will dream of nothing but that scene." Loki smirks. "You will need to find other ways of exercising your sexual frustrations, I fear."

"Yeah, you're really hilarious. A regular comedian. Ha, ha." Tony rubs his palm against his chest. What Loki is offering doesn't sound like a bad deal. And what's the harm? He could take him up on it, just for a little while, while he has to stay focused on this whole scepter hunt thing, and since he rarely dreams about anything but that vast awful of space these days, the so-called catch isn't much of one. There's the chance Loki is trying to put one over on him, sure, but Tony's gut is telling him that's not the case, and Tony's gut sometimes knows what it's talking about.

"Okay," Tony says. "I guess it doesn't sound too awful."

"A ringing endorsement indeed. You are accepting my assistance?"

"Yeah, I guess I am."

Loki nods. "Very well. Then let's get you to bed."

"Yeah, let's— Where are you going?"

Loki stops halfway through the door. "Where do you suppose? Unless you would rather sleep at your workbench..."

"You can't just waltz through the tower like you belong here."

"No?"

"No. I'm pretty sure someone—probably Bruce—is still going to be awake and will totally notice if you walk by, and that's not going to end well. For you."

Loki scoffs. "No one will notice me unless I wish for them to. They haven't yet."

Alarm bells go off in Tony's head. "Yet? You do this a lot?"

"Well, I certainly wouldn't go quite that far. But it is an easy enough thing to redirect their attention if I make a noise, and an even easier task to bend the light around myself so that I may walk among them unseen." He pauses, clearly going through some kind of internal debate. "I admit, before I came to my current arrangement with your JARVIS, that is how I kept myself from his notice."

Tony frowns. "Is that why you didn't have a reflection that one time?"

Loki smiles. "Very good, Stark. You've figured that out."

So he's not a ghost. Or a vampire. Probably. "Have you invisibility-cloaked yourself around me?"

Loki tilts his head slightly. "You will need to continue to ponder that one, I'm afraid. Come now, don't dawdle."

Loki starts out of the workspace then, and Tony, not sure what else to do, follows him. Loki doesn't bat an eye as he traipses through the common room, right in front of where Bruce is doing a crossword puzzle. Bruce glances up when Tony comes through.

"Steve said you were taking a break, but I have to admit I didn't believe it when he said it."

Tony laughs, a little more awkwardly than he'd like. "Yeah, well, you know. Got to hit refresh now and then, right?"

"Mmhm." Bruce considers him a moment before his face creases into a frown. "Something wrong?"

"What? No. Of course not. Just tired." He glances to where Loki is watching near the elevator, looking more amused than he should, and offers Bruce the lamest half-wave of his life. "See you later, don't let it bother you if Hulk is one of the answers to, say, thirty-one down, bye," he says, and rushes to hit the 'up' button.

The elevator arrives quickly, and Loki and Tony both step on. Once the doors close, Loki snickers.

"That was a pathetic display."

"Shut up. I'm essentially harboring a fugitive right now. It's stressful."

Loki remains, as always, unperturbed. "As he cannot see me, I hardly see why that should cause you any distress."

"Try it sometime. See how not distressed you are."

Loki shrugs and, when the elevator doors ding open at Tony's floor, steps out of the carriage without another word on the matter.

Tony, for his part, heads for the bed and takes a seat on the edge. "So how does this work? Are you setting me up with some kind of mind palace? Should I wear comfortable shoes, or is this..."

He trails off as Loki walks right into his personal space, leaning in and reaching out to cradle Tony's face in his hands. Tony holds his breath, eyes wide. Okay, so, yes, he's been okay with having Loki in his general vicinity up until now, but this is a little close for comfort. The last time they were this close, Loki dropped him thirty-some stories out a window.

Tony can practically the beads of nervous sweat forming on his forehead. Loki chivalrously ignores them.

"What are you doing?" Tony breathes.

"Hush," Loki chides, and he blows a cool breath into Tony's face, forcing Tony to shut his eyes—

—and when he opens them again, he's somewhere else. A park, maybe. Some place grassy, with trees. Definitely not Central Park: for one thing, there's no one else around; for another, it's too quiet. Tony can hear some birds doing their thing in the distance, but other than that… There's the wind moving through the leaves, the sun on his face, and him.

"Is this my mind palace?" he asks aloud. "Loki?"

He doesn't get an answer, and, if he's being honest with himself, he's a little surprised. For some reason, he expected Loki to follow him in.

"Huh," he says, and takes a seat on the grass, in the shade of what he thinks is a birch tree. Then, after a moment, "I'd better wake up from this," he warns the empty space. "If you put me to sleep forever, Loki, I swear—"

"Do relax," Loki says, appearing next to Tony as though he's been sitting there all along. Given his trick with distorting light, maybe he has. "You'll wake up once you are rested, or once you are awoken."

"I knew you were there."

"No, you did not."

Tony makes a face. "Well, I knew you were somewhere."

"I just arrived."

"I don't believe you."

Loki rolls his eyes. "You were making noises in your sleep, and I thought to check to ensure the seidr took hold as it should. It did. As such, I'll leave you to your repose."

He starts to get up, but Tony reaches out and rests a hand on his sleeve. "Hold on there, Hermione. Maybe you haven't noticed, but I don't do so well with silence. You'd better stick around. Make sure I don't go crazy listening to the birds chirp."

Loki blinks at him, but he quickly composes his features to mask what Tony is pretty sure was surprise. "You desire my company?"

"I desire company," Tony clarifies. "You're here. You'll do. Any port in a storm, right?"

"I am ever so flattered," he says dryly. Still, Loki settles back on the grass.

Tony waits until Loki looks good and comfortable before he speaks up again. "So how does this work, exactly?"

Loki shrugs. "It's a mere matter of altering the state of your thinking. I chose what I thought might be a pleasant scene and offered it to your subconscious as an alternative to what was already there."

"So it's a literal mind game. Okay." He leans forward, resting his folded arms on his knees. "So this place. It's, what, some place you know, or just something you picked at random, or…?"

"Does it matter?"

"Just curious."

"Hm."

"If it were up to me, I wouldn't be sitting on the grass, though."

"I would remind you that this is your dream, Stark. If you want a chair, you need merely will it into existence."

"So because it's my dream, I get to do the voodoo like you do?"

"No. My seidrcraft is a thing of long and complex study. You are lucid dreaming. That's hardly much of an accomplishment."

"Huh. So how do I—"

Loki huffs. "Just will it, Stark."

Tony furrows his brow, then shut his eyes and concentrates very hard. When he feels something soft under his fingers, he opens his eyes and looks down. "Huh," he says, running his hand over the blanket that's appeared under him and Loki. He considers that, then presses his palm against his chest. "So is it my fault or yours that in my dream I have the arc reactor again?"

"The what?"

"Mine, then. Okay." He shrugs. "It's still good."

"I'm ever so pleased that you like it," Loki says dryly.

Tony bites back a grin. "Aw, come on, don't be like that. I'm letting you sit on my dream blanket, aren't I? I'm being very generous here."

"That is rather up for debate." Still, Loki partly reclines, resting his weight on the palm of his hands. The pose almost makes him look like a real person, not the crazy Asgardian supervillain alien god that he is. "This will suffice, then?"

Tony nods. "Yeah," he says, shutting his eyes and tilting his head back to enjoy the feel of the sunlight that ekes through the leaves. "This'll do fine."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written for the Frostiron Reverse Bang 2017 project. My sincere thanks go to the very talented itsfrostironsfault, who drew the art that this story accompanies, served as my cheerleader, and was exceedingly patient as I waited until the very last minute to wrap this up. Thank you!

"Okay," Tony says, wiggling his bare toes in the grass. "If you were stranded on a deserted island, what three things would you take with you?"

Loki arches an eyebrow and turns a page in his book without using his hands, because apparently Loki can still use magic in Tony's dreamscape. Maybe because Tony's subconscious has decided that Loki wouldn't be Loki without it. "What sort of question is that?"

"It's your standard, run-of-the-mill hypothetical question. Come on. I know you have hypothetical questions on Asgard."

"Yes, but the question as you've posited it makes no sense. Why would I choose to be stranded on a desert island?"

"You didn't choose it. You're stranded."

"Then why do I have control of what items I have in my possession?" Loki turns another page. How he's managing to read and keep up with the conversation, Tony has no idea. Maybe he's just turning pages for show. "Whenever I have been stranded anywhere, island or otherwise, I was certainly not given time or advance notice to gather any of my belongings."

Tony frowns. "When have you ever been stranded any place?"

Loki turns that piercing gaze on Tony for a split second before he goes back to his book. "That's irrelevant. You are changing the topic as you do not like my finding the flaws in your query."

"I'd bring DUM-E."

"Why is that?"

"Someone to talk at."

"Ah, yes. Your incessant need for company. I had nearly forgotten."

Tony shrugs and tears at a piece of grass. Despite Loki's complaints, he's pretty sure the god doesn't particularly mind that Tony has him keep him company in his dreamscape. If he did, why would he keep coming back? "DUM-E," he says again. "And I guess my toolkit."

"Does the toolkit qualify as one item, as it contains multiple items within it?"

"You could argue that for a book because it has multiple pages in it," Tony points out.

"I never indicated I would bring a book with me to the deserted island on which I am apparently very comfortably stranded."

"You would, though."

Loki makes a noise that Tony thinks might be a concession. "DUM-E and your toolkit," he says. "And your third item?"

"I don't know. Scotch? Speaking of which." He snaps his fingers. "Scotch me, oh great and powerful Oz."

Loki rolls his eyes, but a glass with a finger of scotch in it appears out of nowhere. So does a glass of wine, which Loki plucks from the air as though glasses of wine spontaneously appear around him all the time.

Tony sips his scotch, thinking. "Maybe a sat phone instead of the scotch. For when I get tired of being stranded."

"My, you have found yourself in a terribly convenient unfortunate situation."

"Shut up. Three things. Name them."

"No."

"Fine, I'll name them for you." He counts them on his fingers. "One, a book. Two, a haughty attitude. Three, a framed photo of Thor..."

Loki smacks him with his book. Tony laughs.

"Okay, so you tell me. What would you bring?"

"Mm." Loki looks somewhere over the top of his book, thinking. "Do I still have my seidr on this deserted island?"

Tony frowns. "Is you not having your magic an option?"

"I have not had it in previous such situations."

"I still want to know about those."

"No. So, for the sake of this scenario, I can assume I do not have it?"

Tony shrugs. "It'd be too easy for you otherwise."

"And your satellite phone is not?"

"Point taken. But yeah, let's assume you've run out of juice. Hypothetically."

"Hm." Loki squints at nothing in particular. "What precisely was your reasoning for choosing a deserted island?"

"What... Seriously? You're just stalling because you don't want to admit my list for you was completely on the mark." Tony shakes his head and sets his glass aside, then pushes Loki's book out of the way—it hovers in mid-air, because of course it does—and falls back to lay his head partially on Loki's lap. "But fine, you win, don't answer my question. I don't care."

Above him, Loki chuckles, and Tony shivers when Loki's fingers twine themselves in his hair. This shouldn't be so easy. It shouldn't be so comfortable. It's only been, what, a month since Loki created this mind palace for him, and he's already okay with Loki being in his personal space? With him being in Loki's personal space, too, for that matter. Maybe it's because it's a dream. Tony would never be okay with this in the real world. Probably. Maybe.

"I noticed you brought your phone with you to your dream," Loki says. "I can't say I'm surprised you chose to bring one with you to your hypothetical deserted island."

"You brought a book and wine to my dream," Tony points out. "At least one of us has our priorities in order."

"Yes, I suppose one of us does."

Tony decides not to wonder too much about which of them Loki is talking about. He's pretty sure he already knows the answer. "We haven't had any luck finding your staff."

"I know."

Tony opens one eye to look at Loki. "You do not."

"Ah, but I do."

"Bullshit. We've raided, like, a bajillion Hydra bases. How would you know if we found it?"

"I'd know." Loki runs his fingernails lightly over Tony's scalp. "For one thing, you would have mentioned it before if you had."

"No I wouldn't. You're still persona non grata as far as pretty much everyone else is concerned."

"I suppose I should be flattered they still think so highly of me even after Thor reported my death."

Which Tony still wonders about. Loki is definitely not dead. He's decided that. Loki is a bit too solid and magical and _there_ to be dead. Not that he's told Thor that; he's not sure how to go about breaking that news, or how Thor will take it when he does. It's not like he has any idea where Loki has been hiding out, and since he's only seen Loki in his dreams lately—which sounds a little weird, when he thinks about it—he can't even help Thor try to track the guy down.

Oh, and he's not sure he wants to help Thor track Loki down, given that he's half certain that Thor will either murder Loki for making him think he was dead or put him back in Asgard jail. And Tony doesn't want that. Which is, well, complicated. For so, so many reasons.

Tony doesn't know if he likes complicated, these days.

"I'd take you, perhaps," Loki muses.

Tony's eyes fly open. "What?"

Loki arches an eyebrow. "To the deserted island."

"Um." Tony hesitates, trying to gauge whether this just got awkward enough to warrant his moving out of his supremely comfortable position on Loki's lap. "Why?"

"I would require some sort of plaything to keep myself entertained. You'd suffice."

Which clears up absolutely nothing. "Is that meant to be an insult or a come on?"

Loki's eyes practically dance with amusement. "Which would you prefer?"

Insult is the safer—and probably more likely—option. Still, the alternative gets Tony's mind wandering, and he clears his throat as he sits up, putting a little distance between himself and Loki. That his mind even went to 'come on' and lingered there is probably not a good thing; he doesn't need to entertain that little fantasy.

A smile plays on Loki's lips, and Tony can't shake the idea that the god knows what he's thinking. He makes a face; Loki's smile widens.

"Did I make you uncomfortable, Stark?"

"You can't take me to the island. I said _things_ , not people. What _things_ would you take with you."

"To the contrary. You merely asked what I would take. You did not specify objects vice people." Loki pauses. "And you ventured to take DUM-E."

"That's totally different."

Loki's eyebrows go up, questioning. "Is it?"

Tony hesitates, then sighs. "No," he admits. "Not really."

"I thought not." Loki pats his lap where Tony had lain his head. "Come now, Stark. I don't bite."

"I bet you do bite, you bastard." But, because he wants to prove that Loki didn't make him uncomfortable—in all fairness, Tony did that to himself—he returns to his prone position. He rests an arm between his head and Loki's leg, though, just because.

The fingers return to their place in Tony's hair almost immediately, and Tony shuts his eyes again.

"Okay," he admits. "I've got to admit it, I like my mind palace. Have I told you that recently?"

Loki chuckles. "Well, you have not yet today."

"I just did. This is good. This is great." He stretches out. "What's your mind palace like?"

"I do not have one."

Tony frowns. "You don't?"

"No."

"So you don't dream about—"

"I did not say that."

"Oh." Tony is silent for a beat, and then he opens his eyes to look up at Loki, who is staring straight ahead, pointedly avoiding looking at Tony. "How long were you in there?"

"In where?"

"You know where."

Loki doesn't answer, not at first, but when he does, his shoulders sag, as though he's admitting some minor defeat. "Time progresses differently in the void, if it does at all, so I do not know for certain. Months, perhaps. Years. It was, no matter the duration, a great while longer than I'd have liked."

"So you have a ton of nightmare fodder stored in that brain of yours."

"Yes."

"But no mind palace."

Loki shakes his head. "No mind palace," he confirms.

"How do you handle it, then?"

Loki glances at him. "Who says that I do?"

Tony frowns. "Well, I'm going to assume you get _some_ sleep, seeing as how you haven't completely..." He stops himself before he can say 'completely gone off the rails,' remembering somewhat belatedly the haunted look in Loki's eyes back in Stuttgart, and that first time in New York, and the way Loki had gone dark, like someone had flipped a switch, that time, however long ago it was now, that Tony implied he might be crazy. "Okay. So why don't you set yourself up with a nifty new default dream setting, like you did for me?"

Loki frowns, his eyebrows knitting close together. "I could spin that," he says. "You have seen what is out there. You've dreamt of what it could mean for you. For your world. Yet you choose to run from it rather than rally your defenses."

"I'm not running."

"No? You certainly aren't doing anything about it."

"Could I do something about it?" He and Bruce have talked about it, briefly, but all in hypotheticals. Something they could build to save the world so that they wouldn't have to. They have a schematic, of sorts, that they come up with over Chinese takeout and whatever terrible beer Clint had left in the refrigerator, but that was as far as they got. There were too many holes in their equations to try anything more concrete.

Loki shrugs. "The fate of your world could hang in the balance. You tell me."

Tony groans. "You know, I just wanted to take a nap and interrupt you while you were reading. This isn't really fair, you ganging up on me while I'm trying to sleep."

"You are sleeping."

"Not my point." He pauses. "So should I interpret your question to mean you're trying to rally your defenses?"

"I suppose you could."

"Is that why I'm on this wild goose chase for the magic glowstick of destiny?" he asks. Loki doesn't answer, which is, in itself, answer enough, and Tony sighs, sitting up again. "You know, you could have just told me that from the start."

"No, I rather think I could not."

"Why not?"

Loki glances at him. "Would you have believed me if I had?"

Tony wants to say yes, of course he would have, but he knows that he's only saying that because he's had months, or however long it's been, to get used to Loki's way of twisting the truth, to grow accustomed to his being there at all. He can usually tell when Loki is lying or merely avoiding a question—or Loki lets him think he can—and he supposes he trusts him enough to let him in his brain now and then. Which, okay, is probably still a bad idea, but he's had a nice, long stretch of nightmare-less sleep, and he's going to count it as a win.

"I don't know," he admits.

"I thought not." Loki shrugs. "It hardly matters. This could all be a figment of your fancy, in any case."

Tony frowns. "If you showing up in my lab and then my bedroom and then drinking my scotch and then over and over again whenever I fall asleep is some long, slow, incredibly disappointing sex dream, then I definitely need to get my head checked."

Loki arches an eyebrow. "You find me disappointing?"

"As sexy dreams go, yes."

He clucks his tongue. "Pity."

"You could always do something to change that. Quick, try summoning some music and doing a strip tease."

Loki tugs on his hair. "Don't be ridiculous."

"Okay, okay, sorry. I won't do it again." He grins. "Great mental image, though."

"Stark..." Loki shakes his head. "In any case, you are romantically involved with your Miss Potts, are you not? I would think, were you to have such dreams, you'd want them to be of her."

"Oh, well, yeah, but, well, you know. Things with Pepper have been sort of weird. I told you."

"Still?"

"Since the whole extremis thing." He pauses. "Since before that, maybe. But definitely since then. I've barely seen her since I moved into the tower." He continues quickly. "Not that she doesn't have her reasons. She has my whole company to run and all my messes to clean up, so she's plenty busy on her own, jetsetting all over the world and running things back in the California offices. Plus the board went completely nuts over my almost dying, oh, what is it, four times now? And keeping a leash on them so stocks don't plummet is a full time job, let me tell you. I've never done it, myself, but I've hired enough people to do it that I think I know how hard it must be. Oh, and—"

"You needn't explain," Loki says. Tony isn't sure whether the edge in his voice is exasperation or amusement. "All relationships have their ups and downs."

"Understatement. But you're right. It'll work out. Or, you know, not. We'll see. Anyway, you took care of it so that this is the only thing I dream about. This bit of grass, that tree, and you."

Loki shrugs. "I did warn you."

"I know you did. I'm just saying, if I want a sexy dream, it sounds like I've got to rely on you to supply the sexy. Should be easy, right?"

"Should I be flattered?"

Tony wrinkles his nose. "Don't even pretend like you aren't."

Loki laughs, softly, and reaches over, catching Tony by the chin and tilting his head up. "There's a saying, I believe, about flattery?"

"That'll get me everywhere? Yeah. I know that one." He offers up a grin. "I don't think it counts as cheating if it happens in a dream."

"Only one of us is dreaming."

"Only one of us is in a thing with Pepper."

Loki arches an eyebrow, still holding onto Tony's chin. He's a breath away, really. It's kind of terrifying. And amazing. "Your argument is flawed."

He can't refute that, so, instead, he asks, "Are you going to kiss me or aren't you?"

"Is that what you want?"

The answer is out of his mouth before he can think it through. "Yes," he says. "But that's sort of my default setting when I'm around anyone with both a brain and legs for days. Or, well, pretty much just around anyone. I'm not going to lie, I've been with a lot of—"

Loki cuts him off by closing the distance between them and pressing their lips together.

It's not the most graceful kiss of Tony's life. For one thing, he's in the middle of a sentence when it starts, so at first it's just a clash of lips and teeth and he has to process it, let his brain catch up, before he can adjust to the change in his situation. For another thing, his mind is racing because, well, Loki is _kissing_ him, and Tony didn't actually expect him to do that.

Not that he's complaining, but still.

Loki eases away before Tony can recover, and Tony shakes his head.

"I can do better than that."

That startles a laugh out of Loki. "I hadn't even said anything."

"You were thinking it. I could tell."

"It's no matter. That was for your benefit more than mine."

"Liar." If he's learned anything, it's that Loki doesn't do anything unless it benefits him in the long run. "At least give me a chance to redeem myself, will you?"

"Do you deserve one?"

"Did you?"

Loki's eyebrows go up, and he tilts his head to one side. "Have I redeemed myself, then?"

"I'll let you know after we track down your whammy stick. But so far, so good, right?" Tony shifts slightly closer to Loki. "Come on. We've been flirting since New York, haven't we? We owe it to ourselves.."

He shakes his head, a smile playing on his lips. "One last kiss," he agrees. "To remember for later."

Whether Loki means for him to remember or Tony to remember, it doesn't matter. Tony takes the invitation he's given and leans in.

This kiss is a whisper, and Tony has barely had time to register the press of his lips against Loki's before JARVIS wakes him up.

_'Sir, Captain Rogers has—'_

"Mute." Tony stares up at his ceiling, trying to burn the memory of his dream into his brain, and then presses the heels of his hands against his eyes. No. Bad Tony. He indulged himself once, in the dream. That's as far as that can go. Even if Pepper were out of the picture, Loki is still... Problematic isn't quite the word, but it'll do. Loki is problematic.

And an amazing kisser, but he'll file that away for later. Just in case.

Tony sighs and lowers his hands from his eyes. "Okay, JARVIS, lay it on me. What's Steve want this time?"

_'It would seem the team has located a Hydra outpost, sir. In Sokovia.'_

"Where?"

_'I've sent the coordinates to your Iron Man HUD. I would be happy to give you a more thorough geography lesson later, however.'_

"Skip it." He gets out of bed and reaches for his shirt. "Team on their way?"

_'They are assembling in the Quinjet, sir.'_

"Great." He rolls his shoulders and heads for the elevator that will take him directly to his Iron Man suits. "Tell them I'll meet them there."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Go to http://itsfrostironsfault.tumblr.com/post/159227293657/daydream-please-do-not-repost-without-my to see the art that inspired this chapter!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written for the Frostiron Reverse Bang 2017 project. My sincere thanks go to the very talented itsfrostironsfault, who drew the art that this story accompanies, served as my cheerleader, and was exceedingly patient as I waited until the very last minute to wrap this up. Thank you!

A kiss to remember for later. Tony remembers it, all right. He remembers it on the long flight to Sokovia. He remembers it as he watches Bruce and Natasha share a moment just before Bruce goes green and starts tearing Hydra to shreds.

He remembers it as he feels the heat of what he later learns is Wanda Maximoff's magic burn away the foundation of his mind palace and bring his nightmares back to the forefront of his brain.

He remembers it as he and Bruce apply the AI code in Loki's scepter to the Iron Legion, and fail.

He remembers it as Ultron rises from the ashes and attacks.

He remembers it as Steve and Thor have a go at him for creating Ultron in the first place, for using the power in the scepter to bring him into being. As he watches Vision open his eyes for the first time and realizes JARVIS is gone forever. As the team assembles, somewhat begrudgingly. As they watch Sokovia crumble and fall.

He remembers it as he leaves the new Avengers base and heads back to his newly reconstructed Malibu home.

He remembers it as the lights turn on for the first time and he finds himself alone, in his almost literal palace by the sea. He goes to stand by one of his picture windows and presses his forehead against the glass.

"Hold my calls, JA…" He stops himself. Corrects himself. "FRIDAY."

_'Of course, boss.'_

It's a little too much _different_ all at once, Tony decides. New house. New AI. New realization that he'll wake up in the middle of the night, despite how exhausted he is, with a scream caught in his throat because he'll have dreams about fire and the world dead or dying around him, about the Chitauri descending from the sky, about entire cities falling to pieces, all because he wasn't good enough, he wasn't fast enough, he wasn't smart enough.

It's worse than before. He tries to shake himself out of it, but the weight on his shoulders just seems heavier for the effort. He's not going to be able to drink this one away, and he'll have to sleep eventually. Sooner rather than later, at this point, or else he's not sure he'll be able to keep it together. And he needs to keep it together. For his own sake, if for nothing else.

He takes a deep breath. Then another. He can do this. He can do this. He can—

"Long day, Stark?"

The little knot that's settled between Tony's shoulder blades gets a little tighter. "Not a good time, Loki."

"Shame." Loki steps up to stand beside Tony in front of the window. He clasps his hands behind his back, considering the nighttime view.

Tony tries to contain himself. Just, well, not very hard.

"Did you set me up?" he accuses.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Finding the scepter. Telling me over and over again about how powerful it was. You put this... This _idea_ in my head that if only I had that, I could maybe help defend the world against whatever is coming next. And know what happened instead? I nearly destroyed the world myself. How is that helping anybody, Loki? Or was that your whole point? Was that your plan? To watch while I finished your dirty work and laugh because you knew I had good intentions while I was doing it?"

Loki's face remains expressionless as he listens. When Tony stops to take a breath, he inclines his head, just slightly. "Are you done?"

"No, I'm not done! I trusted you, you know that? Which was stupid, because I _knew_ you were bad news, and then you went and used all of this against me, and that's real shitty, Loki. Really, really shitty. You—"

"That's quite enough." Loki turns to face him fully. "Do you know what is coming next, Stark?"

The question catches him off guard enough that it keeps Tony from launching into his diatribe with renewed fervor. "What?"

"You said that you were looking to defend the world against whatever might be coming next. Do you know what that is? You caught a glimpse into the void. You fought against the Chitauri army. But do you know, truly, what is coming?" Loki meets his gaze, and it's the same clear gaze Tony remembers. The gaze Tony trusted to safeguard him from nightmares. "I do."

"Is that supposed to reassure me?"

"Not at all."

"Are you working with them? With whatever is heading this way?"

Loki shakes his head, looking a bit pained. "No. Never again."

"But you were. In New York?"

"By necessity." Loki sighs. "If Midgard is in danger, so are the remaining realms, and as I've a vested interest in those realms, seeing as how I intend to one day rule them, I would rather avoid having them threatened. We've less time than I would like to prepare, and I had thought..."

He trails off, but Tony, still wary but feeling a bit less like shouting, prompts, "You thought?"

"Using the Mind stone to power your global defense system was a nice effort," Loki concedes. "Misguided, as Infinity Stones are not meant to be controlled as such, but well intentioned."

"And you thought?" Tony prompts again.

"It does not matter."

"You used me. It matters to me."

Loki purses his lips, but he complies. "I could have found the scepter, and much faster than did you, but I wanted nothing further to do with the Mind stone. And there you were. Clever. Resourceful. I had thought to keep myself out of the mess by spurring you to act on the matter instead."

He gets the feeling there's a 'but' to that, but he doesn't press. "Yeah, great, except you never told me what to do with it once I had it. You left that part out of your plan."

"I did say you were clever," Loki says, somewhat crossly. "I'd assumed you'd figure something out."

"Well, I did, and it wound up being a mess. Bet you wish you'd thought of that now."

"Oh, do shut up." Loki sighs. "I blame you for it. I did not plan to spend so much of my time with you, and between that and my other duties, it was difficult to think so far ahead. And I did not think you would find the scepter quite so soon."

"Hey, you didn't _have_ to spend all your free time lounging around my mind palace. In fact, I'm starting to wish you hadn't. You just made things more complicated." He runs his fingers through his hair, pulling at the ends. "Sure, I was having nightmares before, but at least I wasn't in league with a supervillain or seriously concerned that I might be emotionally compromised because of it. I don't know if I'd say it was _better_ , but it was definitely _easier_."

"I didn't realize you were looking for the _easy_ way, Stark."

"Don't twist my words." He drops his hands. "And I can't even hate you for this, really. That's probably the worst part. You used me and you manipulated me, and I can't hate you because I think, in your own sick way, you were trying to help." He glances at him. "Were you?"

Loki shrugs. "It's open to interpretation."

"I'm going to take that as a yes." Tony sighs. "Are you here to build me a new mind palace?"

"Do you want me to?"

"Yes. But at the same time, no?" He frowns. "I mean, you pointed it out, didn't you? I'm avoiding the reality of what's coming by trying to pretend it's not there. Ignoring my nightmares means running away from the truth of it."

"Did I say that?"

"You said something like that."

"How poignant of me."

Tony turns around and leans his back against the window. "So no, no mind palace." He pauses. "How do you deal with them? The nightmares? And don't pretend like you don't have any, because you spent ages in that place, so I know you've got to have them. Probably way worse than I do. You wouldn't have thought up the mind palace thing otherwise."

"Mm." Loki rests his palm against the glass. He doesn't have a reflection, but Tony doesn't waste any time wondering whether or not he's real. He knows. "I heed them as the warnings they are," he answers, carefully. "And in my waking hours, I find things with which to distract myself."

"Like what?"

Loki looks at him. "Need you ask?"

"Oh." Tony is silent for a beat. "I'm still with Pepper. And I'm awake now. Sorry."

Loki shrugs. "It was a pleasant diversion while it lasted."

"Glad I could help."

"Yes." Loki drops his hand from the glass. "As it seems you've no need of me, I shall be on my way. I'm sure Thor, now that he's aware of the Infinity Stones, will be eager to find the All Father, and that might complicate things for me."

"Do I want to know?"

"Likely not."

"Then I won't ask." He weighs his options, then decides to hell with it. "Feel free to drop by again. I mean, don't come over with some half-assed scheme to manipulate me into finding, I don't know, some ancient, alien weapon that we could use to ward off this mystery doombringer, but if you find yourself really needing a distraction... I mean, it's not like I won't be able to use one myself."

The corners of Loki's mouth curve up just slightly in what might be the start of a smile. "I'll remember that," he assures him, and he disappears.

Tony waits a moment to make sure Loki has gone, then lets out a breath. "FRIDAY, did you get all that?"

_'I did.'_

Well, good to know he at least correctly calibrated his new AI so that she wouldn't be fooled by Loki's light-bending trick. "All right. File it on my local drive, just in case."

_'Yes, boss.'_

"And FRIDAY?"

_'Yes?'_

"Start a new project file. Also for the local drive. Project Doomsday." Tony stretches his arms over his head. He feels his back pop and complain because of it, but it feels good. Like scratching an itch. "Have it ready for me when I wake up."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!


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